This disclosure relates generally to the field of numerical weather prediction, and relates more specifically to atmospheric data assimilation.
Numerical weather prediction (NWP) uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the future weather based on current weather conditions. One important component of NWP is atmospheric data assimilation, which is a procedure that mathematically combines all of the available prior information (e.g., background, prediction models, observations, observation operators, error statistics, etc.) to obtain a state estimate (i.e., initial conditions and boundary conditions).
Some of this prior information is obtained from various types of sensors, such as surface weather stations and rain gauges, which are placed throughout a geographic area, in fixed locations. The greater the number of sensors that are placed in a given geographic area, the finer the resolution of the state estimate.